Aityhrein was born to a merchant class family. His mother and father, both grey-elven in race, were originally from Silverwood, but spent little time among their kin. Their merchant trade required them to ply their wares from city to city, town to town. They carried all their goods in two canvas covered wooden wagons. The nature of their business was one of uncertainty, both in their extensive traveling and in their mercantile dealings. Aityhrein quickly learned from his mother and father that a quick mind and a political tongue can mean the difference between life and death, wealth and poverty.

During his long youth, Aityhrein honed his trading skills while under his parents tutelage. He quickly grasped the nature of trade and how to apply it to everything that one would need in life. Through the basic and rudimentary arts of bartering, value is established. This was the starting point for Aityhrein's understanding of economics. For trade and barter to work, each party much value something. Economics is about the changing hands of valued goods and how to get the best deal in such trades. It does not need to end with a substantial or palpable gain from such trade. Trading can involve goods or favors or information or even good will. The applications for the economics of trade are limitless. This is what Aityhrein began to understand at a young age.

It was also during these young times that he began his steps in the guild of channelers. Like his mother and father, he too became a enchanter. He followed their lead and learned from them the basics required; the stamina and concentration needed to work their art. His education at this stage was slow going, but it served as the foundation for his later successes as both a merchant and an enchanter.

Over time Aityhrein eventually took over his parents business as they retired and settled down for good in Silverwood. Aityhrein was never satisfied with the stabile trade routes his parents had established. He was ever eager to find new markets to seek out new goods for old clients. In one such venture he went to Rockfist in search of luminescent mushrooms. During his stay there he came across an old family friend, the Gemcutters. The daughter of the Gemcutters, Golmina, quickly became friends with Aityhrein as they discussed business deals and various other professional matters. Their love for the coin and their visions of the future were so close to each others that even to this day, Aityhrein thinks it was the hand of Fate that lead them together.

With this new partnership, Golmina and Aityhrein, formed an organization designed to serve the needs of the populace at large in everything from information to clothing to protection. It was called the Guild of Merchants, Limited. With the guild as their venue, Aityhrein was able to showcase his skill as an enchanter which had increased by leaps and bounds over the years. His skills were in such great demand that very quickly the GML rose to prominence in the land. It was around this time, comfortable in the belief that the GML was self-sufficient, Aityhrein set his sights on a distant desert reported to be the location of a long lost and extremely powerful artifact. This artifact was said to grant its possessor power and under- standing rivaled only by the Gods themselves.

Long he searched the deserts of Thera, for many scores of years he simply disappeared from the annals of history. Than one day, he returned; beaten, battered, older, but happy. His extensive search led him to what he sought and more. What the actual object was, he has told none but the Gods, but he has named the place of this artifacts location, the Crystal Cavern. It was shortly after returning that Aityhrein reclaimed his duties to the GML, but never with the same fervor he once possessed. For now he had a new goal, one that would raise him above all other mortals. Through his exhaustive and careful research, Aityhrein was able to unlock the power of this artifact and with the blessings of the Immortal Pantheon, he ascended to the heavens to take his place among them.

As an immortal being, Aityhrein still retains much of his mortal views of the world. He is ever seeking new towns and habitats. He is ever seeking new lands to explore and to open trade routes with. He is ever examining the ebb and flow of the lands economy. His mortal passions have now become his immortal responsibility.

But his story does not end there....

His ascension to the heavens did not sate his appetite for wealth and riches, it only enlarge his desire and capacity to grasp more. One such venture was the manipulation of Drithentir, the Vampire Lord, to share his power over the assassins known as Ancient. Aityhrein saw a great opportunity to make immense profits through the Cave. So it would be that Aityhrein would even- tually wrest full control over the Cave from Drithentir and reshape the Cave, only slightly, in his image.

But unbeknownst to Aityhrein, and perhaps because of his vast ego, the dark- ness inherent within the Cave of the Ancients and its dark, sinister past, slowly seeped into him. Year after year, Aityhrein's decisions became less balanced, tipped ever so slightly toward the darker side of his decisions. He did not see this, of course, since as the saying goes, few within the fishbowl see the world as it is. And so it was with Aityhrein, his decisions, his commandments, his edicts, all took a more sinister side without his awareness.

But there were those who were aware, primary among them the Paladin Lord, Anthatal Durvall. He watched the subtle twisting of Aityhrein's mind. He watched his good friend turn his back every year, further and further away as the Cave sucked him in and tainted his will, to the point where Lord Anthatal could not stand the perversion of his old friend any longer and struck back, and struck hard.

In an attempt to cleanse the Cave of the darkness it had wrought upon the world and his old friend, Lord Anthatal lead an assault against the Cave and Aityhrein. Horribly outnumbered, Aityhrein was quickly defeated and the relic that all Ancients worship and protect, was stolen by the Armies of the Light.

And so it was in the Light-blessed city of Ofcol that Lord Anthatal began the fateful ritual to bless the bloodied dagger of the Ancients. But hidden from his divine eyes were laid traps of divine magic by Lord Aityhrein. Ever the enchanter, even in the heavens, Aityhrein had secretly tinkered with the relic of the Ancients, weaving ever so delicately, threads of near invisibility, Threads from the Weave of the One True Spell. These threads were insidious in nature, and it is believed that they did not come from Aityhrein's own mind, but rather were planted by a far more cunning beast...some say a serpent. For the outcome of Anthatal's blessing was to end not in the consecration of the relic, but in a trap wherein Anthatal would lay bare his soul and succumb to the Darkness within the relic.

Whether it was the fickle will of the Fates or the even more clever designs of another more powerful and cunning god, few know for sure. But the results were undeniable. The traps woven about the relic backfired upon the original caster, Aityhrein. Bloodied and beaten from the assault on the Cave, Aityhrein was too weak to resist, unlike Anthatal, who had his vast followers to bolster his spirit. So Aityhrein succumbed to his own traps.

But why the Darkness? Aityhrein has always walked the middle path in mortal life, as well as divine. Even as he was slowly being warped by the evils of the Cave, he still retained a command over his neutral position within the Pantheon. And even if he was slowly gravitating towards the Darkness, why then did the trap not force him towards his opposite mind set as it was designed? That would have been toward the Light, not from it. Sages and scholars can not answer that question with any sort of satisfaction, but there is one disturbingly chilling theory that has been presented by a cleric of the Dome of the Light. There was a darkness hidden at work behind the scenes, forcing the hand of Anthatal, while at the same time slowly twisting Aityhrein toward the Darkness. Aityhrein alluded to it when he was changed from his trap. The Serpent Lord, it was suggested, saw a great ally in Aityhrein and had slowly manipulated him and others of the pantheon, to this day. The day when Lord Aityhrein would be forced into servitude of the Hidden Lord. The day the Dark One claimed possession of the soul of Aityhrein.

There is power without sacrifice....

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